Seminar series

Race and poetry in the Nordics
Speaker: Elliot Mason (Uppsala University)
Abstract: Over the last two decades, a significant shift has occurred in Nordic poetry, which Maïmouna Matikainen-Soreau has called the “postmigration” trend. In Sweden, the children of migrants now form the majority of the most well-known poets. At the same time, emphasizing this “postmigration” literary generation as a total break the past affirms the narrative of the region’s racializing exceptionalism: before migrants arrived, suddenly and without precedent in the early 2000s, there was no such thing as race or racism. How do poetry and literary criticism contend with the political complicity that captures every attempt at defining this literary era? Building on his work on contemporary American poetry in his book Poetics of value (Brill, 2025), in this talk Elliot C. Mason discusses the politics of literary history in the Nordics, ultimately proposing poetry as a crucial site of struggle.
Date and time: Tuesday, June 9, 12:30–14:00
Location: Room B706, Stockholm School of Economics

European ethnics became white Americans only when non-Europeans arrived: A three-group assimilation hypothesis for the future of new immigration
Speaker: Aryan Karimi (University of British Columbia)
Abstract: Contemporary segmented and neo-assimilation research posits that socioeconomic status (SES) mobility led ethnic Europeans to become one with white Anglo-Saxons. The puzzle is that, while they joined whites, recent longitudinal data do not show widespread SES mobility among the ethnic Europeans in the 20^thcentury. Hence there must be a different cause of their assimilation. Karimi proposes that it was boundary expansion by the white Anglo-Saxons. To build this boundary model, he relies on the broader theories of sociology of boundary-work: each group self-identifies vis-à-vis an Other group and, as such, two groups, self and Other, cannot completely assimilate to become one; it is necessary that an Other group remains and exists on the scene. Accordingly, his three-group hypothesis of assimilation proffers that the post-1965 arrival of non-Europeans created a three-group scenario with Anglo-Saxons, European ethnics, and non-Europeans. Then, regardless of SES, the boundary of Anglo-Saxon whiteness expanded to include the European ethnics. Without the third group, ethnic Europeans would not have comprehensively assimilated. Karimi operationalizes the hypothesis and provides a preliminary test using Google Ngram data. He discusses the theoretical implications for non-Europeans' assimilation. 
Date and time: Tuesday, June 16, 12:30–14:00
Location: Room B706, Stockholm School of Economics